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Who Is This Hornswoggler?

Andrew Wheeler is a Vassar alum, class of 1990. He spent 16 years as a bookclub editor (mostly for the Science Fiction Book Club), and then moved into marketing. He marketed books and related products to accountants for Wiley for eight years, and now works for Thomson Reuters as Senior Marketer for Corporate Counsel. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day for a year twice. He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame sons (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) at an unspecified location in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely and purely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Elon Musk, CEO of the company that makes Tesla electric cars, has some complaints about a recent NYTimes test-drive of his company's flagship product. The review was severely negative, so that's only to be expected...but Musk and Tesla have the records of the car's actual performance, which paint a very damning picture for the Times and their reporter John Broder.

Here's one particular money quote:

When he first reached our Milford, Connecticut Supercharger, having
driven the car hard and after taking an unplanned detour through
downtown Manhattan to give his brother a ride, the display said "0 miles
remaining." Instead of plugging in the car, he drove in circles
for over half a mile in a tiny, 100-space parking lot. When the Model S
valiantly refused to die, he eventually plugged it in. On the later
legs, it is clear Broder was determined not to be foiled again.

Perhaps Broder will have an explanation for that period of extended parking-lot driving -- I'd love to hear about how very very hard it was to find a legal spot -- but it certainly doesn't look good.

Any car can be driven to the end of its fuel. It's pretty clear that's the only thing Broder has proven here -- and we have to wonder if the Times will stand behind yet another reporter guilty of making up the story first and then creating the facts to suit it.

Go read the whole thing -- there's charts and graphs and lots of actual, damning evidence. Even if you have no axe to grind in the electric-car battle -- and I certainly don't -- Schadenfreude alone makes this a lovely way to spend a few minutes.

Johanna: I saw that -- though I note that it was posted when Musk was complaining via Tweets, and before the blog post. I don't believe the Times or Broder has responded to the proof that he deliberately ran the car down to zero charge to get that money shot on the flatbed.

Add that to the fact that Broder usually reports on "energy" -- meaning the oil & gas business -- and it doesn't look good at all.

One of the main reasons I found the Times's response unconvincing is that the NYTimes employs a number of automobile reviewers, yet as Mr. Wheeler notes, this particular review was written by their fossil fuel specialist.

Now, fossil fuel specialists don't necessarily have anything to fear from electric cars; that electricity has to come from somewhere, and coal and natural gas are going to be a part of that for our lifetimes. But they wouldn't send a legislative analyst to review the newest midtown restaurant, would they? So what gives in this case?

Also, CNN ran a rather smug article a few days later saying they did the same trip as the Times dude, and had no problems whatsoever.